Category: Lifestyle
Clothing should be fun
I do a lot of things for work. I take photos, I take videos, I write stories, I write columns, I write about style, and I write about life.
I also help guys dress better. Officially it’s called style advising, but down to brass tacks, it means me helping guys get clothes they are happy with. Helping them get rid of the junk that sits in their closet that they never wear and get into clothes that make them look, and feel, their best.
Exercising creative control in the physical space feels good in a way that’s deeper than exercising the same kind of creativity in the digital space.
It’s one of the most rewarding things I do. I know lots of guys dismiss the importance of clothes, but they do so at their peril. Our clothes really do have a huge impact on our psychological state. They can make us pretty unhappy or pretty happy.
Ready to wear
Does that make us “superficial”? No. It’s an acknowledgment of the fact that what we wear represents who we are to others —and to ourselves. If you aren’t happy with how you present yourself, you aren’t going to be happy with yourself. It’s that simple.
So I take personal satisfaction from watching a guy transform his wardrobe over the course of a year or two. What’s particularly satisfying is observing how his attitude toward clothing changes as he overhauls his closet.
The process usually starts with a pragmatic interest in not looking like a slob. Achieving a baseline presentability eliminates any negative attention slovenly dress attracts. From that point he may start to notice that looking a little more “put together” actually attracts positive attention. And once he starts to experience the fruits of dressing decently in public, he’s ready to start enjoying his clothes.
This means he’s comfortable and confident enough that he no longer sees dressing himself as a test to get “right,” but as an opportunity for personal expression and creativity. Clothes finally become what they’re meant to be: fun.
Or as a client deep into his own wardrobe revamp recently told me, “I’m just blown away by how fun this stuff can get.”
What a difference in attitude and mindset. A realization like that is generally a sign that a certain kind of psychological transformation has been completed.
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Making the man
I’m aware that the word “fun” may connote something shallow or frivolous — and in some respects clothing can be both. But the pleasure we derive from clothing also derives from its deeper meaning: the way it reinforces the eternal forms of man and woman, emphasizes our dignity as human beings made in the image of God, and reflects our culture, values, and even religious beliefs.
Remember the pastel cars of the 1950s? It’s hard to believe it, but there was a time when when cars weren’t only black, gray, or white. There was a time when cars were fun. Well, it’s the same thing with clothes. If you really look at the stuff the guys were wearing back in those old movies, they were actually having much more fun than the guy who wears dark jeans, a black T-shirt, and a gray hoodie in 2025. Coming to the final realization that clothes should be fun is actually a kind of returning to tradition.
Creative control
The thoughtfully designed, personal interior of your home feels more welcoming than an airport terminal. A carefully cultivated garden is more beautiful than an expanse of artificial turf. And a well-fitting and harmonious combination of shirt, jacket, and trousers is more flattering than a prison-like monochrome sweatsuit.
There’s also a peculiar psychological benefit to embracing clothes as a domain of fun. Exercising creative control in the physical space feels good in a way that’s deeper than exercising the same kind of creativity it in the digital space.
In our screen-dominant era, the experience of joyfully controlling your personal environment is humanizing and refreshing. It’s good to like how you look and know that you are the one responsible for it. It feels like we are actually doing something rather than just moving pixels around.
Of course, it goes without saying that not all fun is good fun. We know that’s true about all sorts of stuff in life. Many a bad decision sure was fun at the time. So it goes with the temporary thrill of donning stupid neon graphic T-shirts, grotesque Crocs, alien-green sweatpants printed with pizza motifs.
Many men today begin their style journey as overgrown children who have enjoyed this “bad” kind of fun for most of their lives: the dumb T-shirts and the stupid shoes. But then they decide to grow up, and after working through their wardrobe, they come to understand that these classic clothes are not just good for the soul or society. They are fun, and they are the right kind of fun, the kind of fun that edifies and enriches us.
Why spanking a child is not cruel but Christian
I recently read a new book so steeped in self-righteousness that I contemplated watching a few Barack Obama speeches as a palate cleanser.
“The Myth of Good Christian Parenting,” by Marissa Franks Burt and Kelsey Kramer McGinnis, is less a work of theology than a sermon for soft parents — a long sigh bound in paperback. Every page drips with condescension, assuring readers that discipline is outdated, obedience is oppressive, and spanking is somewhere between a sin and a war crime.
Children don’t need friends with car keys. They need moral architects. The parents who fear offending their children will soon be ruled by them.
Their thesis is that corporal punishment has no biblical or moral grounding. Modern parenting should replace the rod with reasoning, the command with conversation. It’s the kind of argument that sounds enlightened until you remember what actual children are like.
RELATED: Blue state punishes Christian parents — but progressive lie crumbles in the process
D-Keine/iStock/Getty Images
Swat analysis
Children, bless them, are beautiful little anarchists. Left to their own devices, they’d eat cookies for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, go to bed once a month, and discover that the toilet doubles nicely as a Jacuzzi for Legos. They’re not wicked, but they are wild. Civilization begins at the moment a parent says no — and means it. A gentle talk about “boundaries” might work on a golden retriever, but toddlers are not guided missiles of rational thought. They’re tiny tyrants with juice boxes.
That’s why spanking, properly understood, isn’t cruelty but calibration. It reminds a child that choices have consequences, that freedom comes with form. Scripture puts it bluntly: He who spares the rod hates his son. That’s not an endorsement of violence but a defense of reality. Actions have outcomes. Cause meets effect. Love, in its purest form, isn’t permissive; it’s corrective.
Of course, the definition of “violence” has never been more expansive than it is today. Everything is violence now — words, glances, even silence. The modern parent can wound a child simply by saying “no.”
When language is warped like that, meaning vanishes. A light swat becomes indistinguishable from abuse, and firmness becomes indistinguishable from fascism. The result is a generation of parents too frightened of headlines to raise human beings.
What we’ve bred instead are families where authority is on paternity leave and discipline forgot to clock in. Many parents seem desperate to be liked by their children, as if approval were the same as affection. But children don’t need friends with car keys. They need moral architects. The parents who fear offending their children will soon be ruled by them.
The discipline of faith
I was spanked as a boy — not beaten, but spanked. There’s a world of difference. I hated it at the time, naturally. But I can see now that it taught something far bigger than compliance. It taught that love sometimes hurts, that boundaries aren’t barriers but guardrails. My father didn’t enjoy it, but he did it because he believed my soul mattered more than my sulking. And years later, I thank him for it.
Contrast that with the new model — the “gentle parenting” gospel that treats structure as sadism and guidance as grievance. It produces parents negotiating with toddlers like diplomats in Geneva. “Would you like to stop screaming now, sweetheart, or in five minutes?” Meanwhile, the child is scaling the curtains, painting the dog, and testing Newton’s patience.
Spanking, done calmly and rarely, is not about pain but proportion. It communicates that wrong choices carry a cost and that the world won’t rearrange itself to spare your feelings. A child who learns that lesson young grows into an adult who doesn’t need therapy to survive a stern email.
Built on boundaries
The irony is that those now crusading against corporal discipline owe their manners to generations who believed in it. The men and women who built the schools, churches, and laws of the modern West were, without exception, raised in homes where clear boundaries existed. They understood that mercy means nothing without justice and love means little without limits.
None of this means children should live in fear. The Christian view of discipline is inseparable from affection. The same hand that corrects should comfort. The difference between abuse and authority lies in motive. The abuser strikes to dominate; the parent disciplines to direct. The point isn’t punishment but perspective, to shape the will without breaking the spirit.
But today, even perspective is suspect. To say a child is wrong is to commit ideological heresy. Every tantrum is “performance art,” every shriek “a statement.” The modern household has become a democracy of one, and its ruler is 4 years old.
When people hear “spanking,” they imagine red faces and raised voices. But in most Christian homes, it’s quieter — a moment of consequence followed by conversation and reconciliation. It’s the living metaphor of moral cause and effect. Pain passes; lessons remain.
Theology of the tap
A society that forgets that truth doesn’t raise children. If anything, it raises dependents. Kids who mistake correction for cruelty will grow into adults allergic to accountability. They won’t admire their parents’ wisdom; they’ll diagnose it.
There’s nothing barbaric about a well-timed swat on the backside. What’s barbaric is a generation raised without consequences, now stunned to learn that the world still has them.
So no, spanking isn’t the enemy of Christian parenting — it’s one of its oldest allies. It has absolutely nothing to do with humiliation and everything to do with humility.
I read “The Myth of Good Christian Parenting” and discovered the real myth: that you can raise grown-ups without ever acting like one. I hated being spanked when I was six. But watching parents haggle over chores like diplomats and negotiate bedtime like hostage situations, I now consider it an early rescue mission — and, in many ways, an act of mercy.
The left wants to ‘reclaim’ the American flag; did they run out of lighter fluid?
In 2018, I was canvassing for a Republican candidate in a local race here in Portland, Oregon. A bunch of us were knocking on doors in the suburbs, seeking out Republicans by using data printouts that indicated which households were aligned with which party.
But those printouts were not always correct. People had moved. Or there were split households. Sometimes the homeowners had changed parties.
In the early 1900s, the color red was the color of communists, subversives, and anarchists.
As the election grew near and we shifted into maximum efficiency mode, our field boss sent out the word: Only go to houses flying the American flag.
That was the easiest way to focus on the most loyal Republicans. In 2018, the two most common flags you saw at people’s houses were the Pride flag (Democrats) and the Stars and Stripes (Republicans).
(The “We Believe in Science” signs had not yet proliferated.)
The funny thing was, we door-knockers were already doing that. I certainly was. I loved canvassing mostly because I liked meeting people. And the best people were always the ones with a big American flag hanging majestically beside their front door.
That was then, this is now
Fast-forward, and I’m at a recent No Kings protest. These protests had drawn huge crowds of leftists and progressives. I wanted to see for myself what these demonstrations looked like.
Imagine my surprise when the first person I encountered was a small elderly woman with a kind face and a big bundle of American flags.
These were 8″ by 12″ flags. The kind little kids might wave at a parade. She approached me and offered me one.
Naturally, I was confused. Was she a Republican? No, she wasn’t. She explained that these were Democrat flags now. The left was taking the flag back. Progressives were patriotic too!
They were? I thought to myself. Since when?
But I was in enemy territory, so I just smiled and took a flag. She showed me the little note that was attached. (Of course, the left can’t give you an American flag without adding their own anti-Trump commentary.)
The note said: “MAGA is trying to claim the American flag as exclusively their own. It is time we reclaim our flag. It is our national promise of freedom, and rightfully belongs to ALL Americans. Wave it proudly.”
I carried it with me as I watched the Trump derangement parade later that day. Multiple American flags were flown. By leftists.
RELATED: Yes, Trump’s flag-burning executive order is constitutional
Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
The red and the blue
This isn’t the first time the left has tried to steal symbols or images (or flags) from the right. They also stole the color blue.
Throughout Europe, in the 1800s, revolutionaries and malcontents were associated with the color red. Monarchs and aristocrats were represented by the color blue.
In the early 1900s, the color red was the color of communists, subversives, and anarchists. During the Russian Revolution of 1917, “The Reds” overthrew the czar and started a civil war.
In China, when Chairman Mao Zedong instigated his own revolution in 1949, the flag, books, and symbols were always colored bright red.
This made sense. The color red suggests anger, revolt, defiance.
While blue — the color of the sky — is the color that indicates calmness, stability, order.
So what did the American left do as they consolidated their power in the late 1900s?
They switched the colors! With the help of their allies in the media, the left managed to STEAL the color blue from conservatives.
So now we call Republican states “red” and Democratic states “blue,” which is the reverse of what the colors should be.
Never mind that the Democrats are still the party of chaos and upheaval. They wanted the prestige of the color blue. They want people to think of them as rational, calm, regal. So they changed the colors to favor themselves.
Capture the flag!
Regarding this theft of our flag: Does the left think we don’t remember five years ago? During the BLM riots, they were burning the flag all over the country.
In Portland, during the “Summer of 100 Riots,” they burned the flag as a nightly ritual.
Think back even further: The left has been burning the flag since the Vietnam War. It’s one of their most predictable political reactions. If anything happens that they don’t like, the American flag goes up in flames!
And aren’t these the same people who tore down the statues of our founders, who created that flag? Founders like George Washington?
In Portland, leftists toppled a large statue of George Washington. They left the statue right where it fell, with George Washington face down in the mud!
And these people think the American flag belongs to them? That they are now the patriots? That they should be anywhere near our beloved Stars and Stripes?
I don’t think so.
The good news is, it probably won’t work. Even if their strategists decide to embrace the flag, your average Joe anarchist won’t be able to help himself. They see an American flag, and they reach for their lighter.
But either way, we must reject this movement. Don’t let them have the flag. They don’t deserve it. They haven’t earned it. And they don’t love it. Not like we do.
Trump’s SHOCKING 25% truck tariff: A matter of national security?
President Donald Trump’s dropping another tariff on the auto industry.
Starting November 1, the U.S. will impose a 25% tariff on all imported medium- and heavy-duty trucks, a dramatic escalation in the administration’s ongoing effort to strengthen domestic manufacturing and reduce reliance on foreign-built vehicles.
The short-term effects could include delays in vehicle availability, higher fleet costs, and potential retaliation from trading partners.
This announcement sent shockwaves through global trade circles and Wall Street. According to Trump, the decision is rooted in national security and economic strength, not politics. But as with any sweeping trade action, there’s more under the hood than meets the eye.
Priced to move
While celebrating the immediate bump in automaker stock prices following the tariff announcement, Trump’s message was direct. “Mary Barra of General Motors and Bill Ford of Ford Motor Company just called to thank me. … Without tariffs, it would be a hard, long slog for truck and car manufacturers in the United States.”
The president framed the move as a matter of economic sovereignty, arguing that domestic production capacity in critical industries, like heavy vehicles used in logistics, defense, and infrastructure, is essential to national security.
That message resonates with many Americans frustrated by decades of outsourcing and the hollowing out of domestic manufacturing. But it’s also raising concerns among global partners and major U.S. companies with deep supply chain ties abroad.
Winners and losers
The new tariffs target a wide range of vehicles: delivery trucks, garbage trucks, utility vehicles, buses, semis, and vocational heavy trucks.
Manufacturers expected to benefit include Paccar, the parent company of Peterbilt and Kenworth, and Daimler Truck North America, which produces Freightliner vehicles in the U.S. These companies have much to gain from reduced import competition and potentially stronger domestic demand.
However, for companies like Stellantis, which manufactures Ram heavy-duty pickups and commercial vans in Mexico, the impact could be costly.
Under the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, trucks assembled in North America can move tariff-free if at least 64% of their content originates within the region. But many manufacturers rely on imported parts and materials, putting them at risk of higher costs and tighter margins.
Mexico, the largest exporter of medium- and heavy-duty trucks to the U.S., will be hit hardest. Imports from Mexico have tripled since 2019, climbing from about 110,000 to 340,000 units annually. Canada, Japan, Germany, and Finland also face new barriers under the 25% tariff.
Industry pushback
Not everyone is excited about the tariffs — especially considering that the import sources for these trucks (Mexico, Canada, and Japan) are long-standing American allies and trading partners.
Industry analysts warn of supply-chain disruptions, potential price increases, and reduced model availability for both commercial fleets and consumers. Tariffs could also pressure U.S. companies to adjust production strategies, increase domestic sourcing, or even pass higher costs on to customers.
RELATED: Hemi tough: Stellantis chooses power over tired EV mandate
Chicago Tribune/Getty Images
The politics of protectionism
This is not the first time a Trump administration has leaned on tariffs as an economic lever. During his previous term, tariffs on imported steel, aluminum, and Chinese goods aimed to bring manufacturing back to U.S. soil. Supporters argue those policies helped revitalize key industries and encourage job growth. Critics countered that they raised costs for American companies and consumers alike.
Still, there’s no denying that tariffs remain one of Trump’s most powerful economic tools and one of his most politically effective messages. By positioning tariffs as a way to protect American jobs, the policy appeals to workers and manufacturers across the Rust Belt, a region that will play a pivotal role in the upcoming election.
Short-term pain
For the U.S. trucking and logistics sectors, the short-term effects could include delays in vehicle availability, higher fleet costs, and potential retaliation from trading partners.
Truck leasing and rental companies that rely on imported chassis and components may see their operating costs rise. Meanwhile, domestic truck makers could ramp up production, potentially benefiting U.S. suppliers and job growth in states like Ohio, Michigan, and Texas.
The challenge will be whether domestic manufacturers can meet demand quickly enough without triggering inflationary pressures in the commercial transportation market.
Long-term gain?
Trump’s framing of the tariffs as a “national security matter” echoes earlier policies aimed at reducing foreign dependence in critical sectors, from semiconductors to electric vehicles. Advocates say this approach ensures that America can produce what it needs in times of crisis.
But opponents warn that labeling economic measures as “security” issues can backfire, alienating allies and inviting retaliation. European officials and trade negotiators in Canada and Japan are already signaling possible countermeasures if talks with Washington fail to yield exemptions.
Mind the gap
The real question now is how manufacturers will adapt. Companies may accelerate plans to localize assembly and parts production inside the U.S., while foreign brands could seek joint ventures or partnerships with American firms to skirt tariffs.
Consumers and fleets will likely see higher sticker prices for imported trucks and commercial vehicles as tariffs ripple through supply chains. That may also shift more buyers toward U.S.-built models, at least in the short term.
Ultimately, Trump’s move puts America’s industrial policy back in the driver’s seat. Whether it strengthens the economy or creates new trade turbulence will depend on how quickly domestic production can fill the gap left by imports.
President Trump’s 25% truck tariff is a high-stakes bet on American manufacturing dominance. It could fuel a resurgence in U.S. production or ignite new rounds of trade retaliation.
Either way, one thing is certain: The decision has already reshaped the conversation about what it means to build, and buy, American.
Red, white, and boo: Almost two-thirds of Americans now believe in ghosts
“I ain’t afraid of no ghost.”
Easy enough to say 40 years ago, when audiences delighted to the spectral pest control antics of Bill Murray, Harold Ramis, and Dan Aykroyd. You can’t fear what isn’t real, after all.
The show pioneered a tactic known as ‘provocation.’ This is when an investigator attempts to goad a spirit into manifesting by insulting it.
Things have changed. Since then, the proportion of Americans who believe in ghosts has surged 400%. Surveys indicate that nearly two-thirds of the population now hold supernatural beliefs, and 20% have reported seeing a ghost.
Entrepreneurial spirits
With roughly 50 million Americans purportedly having encountered a haunting, the business of ghost hunting has evolved into a profitable enterprise. It would appear that the invisible hand of the market really does exist.
As proof that even the ethereal cannot escape the iron law of supply and demand, paranormal tourism is booming. Millions of Americans now spend over $300 million on haunted attractions each year. You can satiate your gruesome desires by visiting Iowa’s Villisca Axe Murder House, where eight people, including six children, were murdered in 1912. For $430, anyone brave enough to take a whack at it can try to spend the night.
Ghost-hunting shows are scaring up unprecedented interest as well. YouTube, for example, has hundreds of paranormal-themed channels. One of the biggest is “Sam and Colby.” With an average of 10 million views per video, the kids are among the most popular ghost hunters online. The two film themselves while visiting haunted locales across the United States. Freed from the limitations of conventional television, the videos are lengthy and typically unedited, offering a more immersive experience for their audience of 15 million subscribers.
There are compilation channels for those who don’t want to endure the deferred gratification of 90 minutes of shaky handheld videos and constant cries of, “What was that?”
Then there are channels like “Mind Junkie” and “Nuke’s Top 5,” which brazenly monetize our endless appetite for not-so-carefully-vetted supernatural slop. One wonders if these shrewd content creators are also behind the “debunking videos” they attract. Nice business model, if so.
Tales from the clip
“Paranormal Caught on Camera,” now in its ninth season on Discovery+ and the Travel Channel, can best be described as a reality show. From poltergeist activity to mysterious shadows roaming the woods, a panel of experts weighs in on supposed paranormal footage from around the world. Imagine “Ghostbusters” meets “America’s Funniest Home Videos” — with the approximate scientific rigor of both.
Psychologists say a prior belief in ghosts makes a person more inclined to perceive unexplained sounds and events as paranormal. The show’s presenters are clearly familiar with the research. They frequently use the term “energy” (which appears to function as a noun, verb, and adjective) and attribute every sound or camera jiggle to the spirit realm.
Ghost roast
“Ghost Adventures” is one of the longest-running and best-known of these types of shows. While the experts on “Paranormal Caught on Camera” are content to remain armchair investigators, aging goth heartthrob Zak Bagans and his crew actually go out into the field. Since 2008, they have traveled around the United States looking for paranormal phenomena. The format is simple: They arrive at an alleged haunted location, turn off the lights, hit record, and explore the building. What we get is a well-curated, finely edited spectacle.
The show pioneered a tactic known as “provocation.” This is when an investigator attempts to goad a spirit into manifesting by insulting it. While this demonstrates a fortitude worthy of Ray Parker Jr. himself, it has never once worked over 300 episodes. The only scary thing that appears to be happening is a group of middle-aged men screaming in the dark about nothing in particular.
The truckload of pseudoscientific equipment these guys bring to the task separates them from your average amateur. A truckload of pseudoscientific instruments is used to add an element of objectivity. Particularly prized is the EMF meter, used to detect the electromagnetic fields ghosts apparently emit. This essential prop emits clicks and pings reminiscent of the motion trackers used to detect xenomorphs in the movie “Aliens.” Unsurprisingly, there is no James Cameron-level tension here. Ninety-nine times out of 100, they’ve probably just found the fuse box.
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Matt Himes
Phantom itch
Slick, polished, and carefully choreographed. It’s all very Hollywood. It comes as no surprise that the massive increase in belief in ghosts over the last 50 years coincides with the golden era of horror. Art imitates life. Many of these shows use the same strategies as your typical Hollywood special effects department.
So why are we watching these shows? “Ghost Adventures,” now in its 28th season, has perfected the art of selling us fear. These shows give us what we want. We love to be afraid. A horror movie grants us the chance to live vicariously through the characters on the screen. A way to experience and navigate terror from the comfort of our couch.
Then there’s another, more poignant, explanation. We believe in ghosts for the same reason that we believe in God. In the end, both ghost hunters and Christians are motivated by the same persistent yearning that has dogged us since the dawn of humanity: There’s got to be something more than this.
Joe Rogan, Christian? The podcaster opens up about his ongoing exploration of faith
Joe Rogan may not be ready to call himself a Christian, but the former atheist does find himself rubbing shoulders with believers on many a Sunday.
The podcaster once again revealed details about his ongoing exploration of the faith, including his habit of regularly attending church.
‘It’s almost like everybody is under a spell.’
He also demonstrated a newfound appreciation of why someone would need God in his or her life. When recent podcast guest Francis Foster expressed amazement at how much a friend of his could rely on religion as a foundation for getting through tough times, Rogan didn’t seem nearly as surprised.
“If you really do believe that, it definitely will help you,” the comedian concurred.
Church going
At that point, fellow guest — and Foster’s “Triggernometry” podcast co-host — Konstantin Kisin chimed in that he himself had been becoming more religious.
“I haven’t got there, but I have started going to church every now and again,” Kisin explained.
“Do you enjoy it?” Rogan asked.
“I love it,” responded Kisin.
“I do too,” confessed Rogan, adding, “It’s a bunch of people that are going to try to make their lives better. They’re trying to be a better person.”
Rogan then described his church experience as getting together with a group of people who read and analyze Bible passages.
“I’m really interested in what these people were trying to say because I don’t think it’s nothing,” Rogan said.
No ‘fairy tale’
From there, the New Jersey native addressed claims he has heard from atheists and secularists who dismiss Christianity as being “foolish.”
The 58-year-old pushed back against the characterization that Christianity as a collection of “fairy tales” by “self-professed intelligent people,” noting that a proper understanding of the faith requires considering historical context, translation difficulties, and oral vs. written tradition.
“I think there’s something to what they’re saying,” Rogan offered.
Trust the science
While noting that modern science has found physical evidence for the biblical flood story told in Genesis, Rogan said he also appreciated the Bible as a compelling depiction of society 6,000 years ago.
Further segments in the podcast revealed that, perhaps due to a renewed interest in faith, Rogan’s algorithm may have even changed.
– YouTube
This became evident when the group discussed some of Kisin’s protest journalism, where he asks befuddled liberals the reason they are attending the current protest of the day.
In response, Rogan pointed to a video of a man doing interviews at a left-wing No Kings protest. The man asks attendees if they believe in human rights, to which they affirm, until they are asked about human rights “in the womb,” which is when they dismiss the idea.
“It’s almost like everybody is under a spell,” Rogan laughed.
Rogan first confirmed he was going to church in June, after hinting at the idea that he was becoming more religious. He described his attendance similarly at that time:
“It’s actually very nice; they’re all just trying to be better people.”
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‘Carrie’ and the monster who raised me
The devil and his minions have haunted me all my life.
As far back as I can remember, I’ve been visited by the unquiet dead, the hungry ghosts, and even Old Scratch himself in my dreams. Perhaps these nighttime visitations were spiritual attacks, perhaps they were the predictable manifestation of the violence and instability of my upbringing.
Like Piper Laurie in ‘Carrie,’ my mother forced me to kneel while she stood above me bellowing. ‘Humble yourself before me!’ she shrieked. ‘GodDAMN you, humble yourself!’
Maybe they were both; maybe the kind of moral derangement that afflicted my parents was a kind of demonic possession.
The devil I know
I’m not sure I believe in God, but I’m getting closer to believing in the devil. That’s a confused position, admittedly, but that’s what you get from a guy who believed as a child until it was punished out of him and then spent too many years as an obnoxious “new atheist” adult.
Whatever the answer may be, I’ve been terrified and fascinated by the supernatural, the uncanny, and the grotesque all my life. The kinds of spooky stories that gripped me were the type you find in Victorian English ghost story anthologies. Authors like E.F. Benson, M.R. James, and Elizabeth Gaskell.
If you like these too, no one reads them better than English podcaster Tony Walker. His “Classic Ghost Stories Podcast” is one of the few I find so good that I voluntarily pay for it. This is no amateur sideshow; Walker’s narration is professional grade. Why he’s not rich reading books for Audible, I’ll never know.
Weeping and wailing women in veils who glide down hallways. Rain-bedraggled brides hitchhiking on the side of the road who disappear from their ride’s passenger seat as he drives past Resurrection Cemetery. Fingerprints that appear on the windows of automobiles that cross the railroad tracks where a locomotive hit a school bus long ago killing the children on board. Their spirit fingers gently push your car along to make sure you don’t meet their sad and untimely fate.
In search of … belief
Like many kids of the 1970s and 1980s, I grew up watching shows like the cryptid/aliens/spook-filled “In Search Of,” narrated by Leonard Nimoy. My library card was full many times over with every book on Bigfoot, extra-sensory perception, telekinesis, poltergeists, and the Bermuda Triangle.
Have you heard about the moving coffins of Barbados? That’s top-quality spine tingles. As the story goes, a wealthy family living on the Caribbean island built a family vault in the cemetery. Every time a member died, the crypt was opened to accept a new coffin. And every time the crypt was opened, the coffins that were already there were tossed about helter-skelter.
Maybe it was flood waters. Except that there was no evidence of water incursion. Maybe pranksters did it. But the family sealed the stone door and sprinkled sand on the floor, and there was never a footprint betraying a (living) human presence.
For a proper classic haunting, you can’t beat the Brown Lady of Raynham Hall. Nearly everyone with a passing familiarity with the spirit world of 20th-century popular culture has seen the photograph of this long dead woman, a translucent, begowned figure descending the grand staircase of the palatial home in Norfolk, England, built during the reign of James I in 1620.
According to two photographers who were documenting the inside of the estate in 1936, as they were setting up a shot, they looked up at the stairs in astonishment. A veiled specter was float-walking silently down the stair treads, and they had just enough time to open the shutter on their plate camera and capture the most famous ghost photograph of all time.
Was she the shade of Lady Dorothy Walpole? Lady Walpole was said to have been immured in a room in Raynham Hall for the rest of her life at the hands of her husband, Charles Townshend, 2nd Viscount Townshend, who was angered by her unfaithful dalliances.
Or was this just the first and best example of trick-ghost photography, a double-exposed photographic plate? In the early days of photography, the public was not wise to the trickery available to a skilled image-maker. Long before Photoshop and AI, the public believed the camera never lies.
I want to believe. There’s something magnetic, romantic, and almost erotic about the possibility that a curtain separates us from the realm of the dead and that it thins at certain times, like now. As a child, I delighted in being scared so badly I didn’t dare turn off the flashlight under the covers I used for my clandestine and very-much-not-allowed post-bedtime reading.
Joy interrupted
Yet the possibility of an ethereal realm where the dead who refuse to acknowledge their condition “live,” a plane where real devil cavorts are not merely fun and games. If that plane exists, and if it’s populated by any of the henchmen attributed to Satan, then the other side is very serious business indeed. I’m not so sure I want to believe, in that case, but I’m also not so sure that I don’t.
When I was 8 years old, my family took a rare trip to a sit-down restaurant on Christmas Eve. We were poor, and a night out at Demicelli’s Italian Restaurant was so special that Christmas would have been joyful even if we didn’t get a single present. As we walked toward Placentia Boulevard in Fullerton, California, I looked at the night sky and saw the brightest star I’d ever seen.
“Mommy, look!” I said, tugging at my mother’s sleeve. I pulled on her cigarette hand, which annoyed her. “It’s the star of Jesus, Mommy. It’s the star that guided the Wise Men to the baby Jesus!”
It was wondrous. It made me feel light-headed with a joy I’d never felt.
My mother made a derisive sniggering noise as she blew out smoke. “Oh, no it isn’t, Josh,” she mocked. “It’s just a star. Probably Venus.”
My face went red with embarrassment, and I stayed quiet the rest of the night. I felt stupid. Unsophisticated. Dumb. Childlike. Naive. And substandard. This was a problem that repeated itself over the years. My mother was the resentful “victim” type, and she was at war with God.
I convinced her to take us to the Presbyterian church where I’d been (to her reluctance, as she recalled it) baptized as an infant for Christmas Eve services in 1986. Mother spent the walk home railing about those “Goddamned hypocritical Christians! Where were they for this single mother when I needed a little help to put food on the table?”
I can’t repeat the rest of what she said in a respectable publication.
Maternal monster
It wasn’t until my 40s that I realized why I had been captivated to the point of obsession with certain dark characters in disturbing films like 1976’s “Carrie.” This was an adaptation of Stephen King’s debut novel of the same name, a book that still ranks among his finest work. It’s only nominally about a teen girl with telekinesis, the psychic ability to move objects with her mind. The story is really about a frightened girl who grew up with a maternal monster.
If you’ve seen the movie, you remember Piper Laurie’s almost kabuki performance as Margaret White, a religious fanatic tormented by her own sense of failure and sin. Seeing herself as a fallen woman who fornicated with a man, she uses extreme interpretations of scripture to berate and subjugate the result of that union, her daughter, Carrie. Just as Margaret believes she can never be forgiven, she can never forgive her daughter for being born, for embodying her mother’s sin in too-real flesh.
So she screams at Carrie, beats her, forces her to confess sins the girl has never committed (they were Margaret’s sins), and worst of all, locks her in a “prayer closet.” The scene that terrified me the most was the vignette in the dining room when Margaret forces Carrie to her knees as she intones about how God had loosed the raven on the world, and the raven was called sin.
“Say it, woman! Say it!” Margaret screams. “Eve was weak. Eve was weak!”
She drags Carrie to the prayer closet, a black cloak whirling about her like the wings of the raven, and babbles insanely while her daughter screams for mercy. Lighting a candle in the dark, Carrie looks up to a figure of St. Sebastian on the wall, a grotesque effigy with agonized eyes reflecting the pain of his arrow wounds.
Fascinated by fear
Margaret White obviously had a severe condition called Borderline Personality Disorder, which also afflicted my mother. While my mother was not a religious fanatic, she treated me the way Margaret White treats Carrie. Just as in the movie’s dining room scene, my mother forced me to kneel while she stood above me bellowing. “Humble yourself before me!” she shrieked. “GodDAMN you, humble yourself!”
My mother did not want what she claimed she wanted: respect and filial piety. She wanted to be worshiped. My mother created herself God in her own image.
So I prayed to God to be delivered from my mother’s prison, but I never got an answer, or one I recognized. I was more certain that the world was full of angry entities, though, and to say I felt haunted wouldn’t go far enough.
That which terrorizes also fascinates. Over my life, I’ve tasted and re-tasted the fear through movies like “Carrie” and “Mommie Dearest.” Fictional versions of my real-life horror were a poison candy; they hurt so good, like the compulsion to thrust the tongue repeatedly into a canker sore that won’t heal.
I still don’t know what I believe about God, the soul, heaven, or hell.
I knew what I saw
No Halloween story would be complete without a personal anecdote of an encounter with the unexplained. This is the first time I’ve told this story to anyone, let alone in print. Like I do myself, you may doubt me. I admit that I was halfway to drunk when it happened. But in the moment, I knew what I saw and heard, I knew I was only buzzed on three beers, not falling-down drunk. I wasn’t hallucinating pink elephants or anything else.
It was 1992. I was 18 years old and sharing an apartment with my best friend, Lisa. It was movie night in the living room, and it was my turn to fetch fresh Molson Goldens from the refrigerator. I put the sweating bottles on a round cocktail tray with a rubber no-slip bottom I’d brought home from the restaurant I worked at.
I was a skilled waiter who could hold a tray with four entrees and several cocktails without spilling. And though I’d had a few beers, I was not drunk. In the hallway as I was about to enter the living room, one of the standing beer bottles on the tray violently flipped over to the horizontal with a thud. It wasn’t the kind of soft thud that happens when something tips over. It was a THUD, as if someone had thrown the bottle into the tray.
Remember, it was a rubberized tray. It was actually difficult for a glass on such a tray to slide, let alone tip over. I had not tilted the tray; I was not weaving drunkenly as I walked. The other beer bottle didn’t tip over. The two mugs on the same tray didn’t move. More, the same thing happened a few minutes later in the living room. My (replaced) beer bottle on the side table, three feet from reach, loudly tipped over on a perfectly level table and made a loud rap.
I remember so clearly stopping still as the blood drained from my head. Did I really just see what I thought I saw? I did. And I felt it, too.
In that moment in the hall, I said this in my head: “What you just saw and heard really happened. You’re not drunk, and you’re not hallucinating. But no one will believe you, and over time, you will not believe you either. Your memory will soften, and you will convince yourself that you were drunk and that you somehow caused these bottles to tip over in apparent defiance of the laws of physics and friction.”
That’s exactly what happened. As I tell you this story, I doubt myself. At the same time, I remember the warning I spoke to myself in my head about doubt there, in the moment, and I know I wasn’t crazy.
Happy Halloween.
